The present invention relates to cardiac magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, and more particularly, to 4D mitral valve segmentation from 2D+t MR slices.
Cardiac MR imaging (CMR) has recently emerged as the new gold standard for characterizing cardiac masses and evaluating cardiac function and anatomy. The multi-plan ability of CMR to acquire tomographic images in any plane, the capability to measure blood flow velocity in all three dimensions within a single slice, and the use of non-ionizing radiation are significant advantages of CMR over other imaging modalities. Clinical studies have proven that CMR is well suited for the complex evaluation of the mitral valve by comparing mitral valve measurements extracted from CMR data with those extracted from computed tomography (CT) data and ultrasound (US) data. However, the 2D slice based acquisition of CMR limits the capabilities for accurate 4D anatomical and functional analysis of the heart due to long throughput times and the need for protracted study.
Although many groups have studied 4D heart chamber acquisition and segmentation, with a focus on the left ventricle, to overcome the 2D acquisition limitations of CMR, there is still no established acquisition protocol for extracting 4D anatomical and function information regarding the heart valves. Furthermore, while there is ongoing work in the field of heart chamber segmentation, there has been less research on extracting the heart valves from CMR data, which is difficult due to the acquisition limitations of CMR and the complexity of the heart valves.